Contributor Tips

Seven Tips for Women’s Agenda Contributors

Women’s Agenda readers are career-minded, educated, and opinionated women. They’re looking to be connected with, and to hear from, women who share their experiences juggling work, life and everything in between. They’re smart, savvy, sophisticated and aspirational. They want to keep up with the latest news and views affecting their careers, as well as the careers and opportunities available to other women.

Which means they’re time poor.

Their spare time is precious, and we need to treat it accordingly. Help them quickly digest the information you’re offering. Let them know, straight up, what they will gain from spending their hard-to-find free time on your post. Make your information succinct and “scannable”. Cross headers, numbered items, lists and short paragraphs are all good tricks to help. We prefer pieces around the 600 mark.

In addition to the above, these are the seven great copy selling points

1. Compelling hook

Online, headlines are everything. They’ll either bring in the readers, or quietly kill what may otherwise be an excellent post. Headlines should be catchy and intriguing, yet simple and instructional. So send us your best working headline with your submission. Yes, we may just change it ourselves, but a working title will at least give us a good head start.

2. Captivating lead

Don’t bury the lead! Get to the crux of the piece quickly. Our audience will give an online post 20 or so seconds to determine if reading through the piece will be worth the effort. They need to be told, straight up, what they’ll learn from the item – or they’ll quickly move on.

3. Worthwhile, error-free info

Be original. And remember, on Women’s Agenda the readers comes first. No need to regurgitate old ideas written about numerous times before. Bring something new to an existing debate or bring something completely original altogether. Good facts, stats and examples will consolidate a point – but always double-check their accuracy and provide a source. Send through any relevant links when submitting your copy.

4. Simplicity

Readers appreciate nothing more than ego-free, concise language. So do the Women’s Agenda editors! Stories discussing a single idea work best – especially with our mantra to keep Women’s Agenda posts short and sharp. We want the audience to engage, and they’ll best do this if given a clear conversation point. Multiple ideas can be run via a series of posts, over consecutive days.

5. Spin-free copy

Our readers are smart and cynical, and can quickly smell a copy rat. So give them information and advice, not thinly veiled marketing material and product pushes.

6. Participation options and feedback

Include a call to action. Invite them to participate and leave their thoughts in the discussion area and, if possible, keep an eye on the discussion and return to include your own two cents.

7. Author info

Give them a short, sharp one-line biography, not your full LinkedIn profile. Offer your job title, organisation name and explain briefly what you do there. You’ll brighten their day (as well as ours) by adding a tidbit regarding something that makes you unique, or explains a quirk relevant to your area of expertise. We also publish social media details and headshots.

And two tips for submitting copy to Women’s Agenda editors

1. Include the seven copy must-haves

That’s all

2. No funny attachments

Please submit copy in the body of an email. No word documents or PDFs, which are editor unfriendly – as is any kind of funky formatting and words in caps.